Boss Lavery unhappy at drop in ‘standards’ but Poppies still leading the way

With the Poppies without a game, AFC Telford knew they would have gone top of the pile with a win at Royston Town, but in the end they needed two goals in the final three minutes to secure a 3-3 draw.

That slip allowed Stratford Town to move up to second as they secured a 2-0 home win over St Ives Town.

Stratford trail Richard Lavery's side by a point, but have played three games more, while Telford in third are also a point adrift having played two extra matches than the Poppies. Halesowen are a further point behind, having also played two more games.

Indeed, Lavery's men now have at least two games in hand on all of the sides below them in the table, and they will be hoping to at least maintain that advantage when they return to action at AFC Sudbury on Saturday.

The Poppies have been left kicking their heels in frustration since their shock 2-1 defeat at Harborough Town on New Year's Day, with successive home games against Halesowen Town and Alvechurch being postponed due to frozen pitches.

But despite that enforced lay-off and patchy form leading into it, Kettering are still top and remain title favourites and Lavery is hoping his players are going to come back firing this weekend.

The loss at Harborough means the Poppies have dropped 10 points out of a possible 18 available to them in their past six games, but fortunately their rivals have all struggled to take full advantage of that dip in form.

"We have had a bit of a blip, but the other sides in and around us have as well," said Lavery. "It is frustrating as we could have been a few points clear, but at the start of the season I would have taken where we are now.

"So I can't complain, but you set standards and we have just dropped off our standards in the past three or four weeks, but that is going to happen along the way.

"It happens to every team, and I won't point the finger at any area, I just think as a collective, for whatever reason, we haven't been at it.

"We had five games over Christmas, and that is difficult, but we are all in the same boat and I just think we have hit a little bit of a bad patch and hopefully we will now come out the other end."

So has the break been something of a blessing?

"After the Harborough game I wanted to get out and play the next day," admitted Lavery.

"But we have had to wait nearly three weeks to put that right with the games being called off, although the good thing with that is we have a clean bill of health and everybody is fit."

Redditch have an artificial pitch at their Valley Stadium home, so Lavery can at least be confident his team will get back in action this weekend, regardless of the weather.

Redditch are currently sitting in mid-table, and were beaten 3-1 at Latimer Park when the sides last met in November.